Beating Tea Party in Idaho Business Group Top ’14 Goal

Jan. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Ground zero in the Republican
Party’s fight to define its future is on the opposite side of
the country from Washington, amid snow-covered mountains and the
Snake River canyon, in a U.S. House race that pits the business
community against the Tea Party.

It’s here in Idaho’s 2nd District where Representative Mike
Simpson, an Appropriations Committee chairman and ally of House
Speaker John Boehner, is fighting for re-election against fellow
Republican Bryan Smith, a lawyer and political novice aligned
with the limited-government movement.

Smith says Simpson doesn’t reflect the district’s
“conservative values” and multiple Tea Party groups are
backing him. The threat to Simpson has awakened national and
local business groups and Idaho companies with little or no
history of getting involved in primary contests. And defending
Simpson is a top priority for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“Extremists haven’t proven themselves to be very
sympathetic to the needs of business,” Alex LaBeau, president
of the Idaho Association of Commerce & Industry, said of the Tea
Party. “It is more populism than conservatism.”

The association formed a super political action committee,
which allows it to raise and spend unlimited sums on campaign
messages, late last year after learning of Simpson’s challenger.

Changing House

The outcome could change how the House operates in 2015.
Last year’s partial government shutdown was led by the Tea Party
caucus in the House, and business groups were stunned when some
of those members resisted raising the government’s debt ceiling
while discounting a default’s economic impact.

A shift in the number of Tea Party allies could determine
Boehner’s flexibility in avoiding such faceoffs and passing
other business priorities, including infrastructure spending.

“Business entities in Idaho have a long history with
Congressman Simpson,” said Mike Reynoldson, the Idaho
government affairs manager for Boise-based Micron Technology
Inc., the largest U.S. maker of memory chips and the employer of
almost 6,000 people in the state. “In this race in particular,
we saw a number of out-of-state interests were recruiting
candidates and raising money and decided we needed an Idaho-based solution to offset the noise.”

Similar dynamics are playing out in U.S. Senate races,
where seven of the 12 Republican incumbents up for re-election
this year face primary challengers, most aligned with the Tea
Party. These showdowns also may act as a proxy for the party’s
direction heading into the 2016 presidential campaign season.

In the House, races pitting business against the Tea Party
are also developing in Michigan, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

Potato Country

Simpson’s Idaho district covers most of the state’s
southern half and is home to a robust potato crop and one of the
nation’s most concentrated Mormon populations.

It’s also one of the most heavily Republican districts.
Mitt Romney, who has endorsed Simpson, won 64.5 percent of the
vote in the 2012 presidential election. The victor of the May 20
primary will almost certainly win the seat, which explains the
early entry by advocates on both sides.

The U.S. Chamber, the nation’s largest business-lobbying
group and a traditional Republican supporter, has already run
ads boosting Simpson. Defending Main Street, a super-PAC
affiliated with the Republican Main Street Partnership and its
call for policy “pragmatism,” plans to spend as much as $1
million to help the incumbent even though the group would rather
focus on competitive open seats.

‘No. 1 Seat’

“We have to go in and defend him,” said Sarah
Chamberlain, the partnership’s chief operating officer. “That
will be our No. 1 seat.”

Tea Party allies are also making the race a testing ground.
The Club for Growth, a Washington-based group favorings spending
cuts, is backing Smith, as are the Washington-based small-government advocates FreedomWorks and the Madison Project.

Smith, 51, dismissed the importance of the business groups
backing Simpson, 63, and said he’ll have enough campaign money
and support from outside groups to be competitive.

“Congressman Simpson’s values do not reflect the values of
the district,” he said during an interview at his Idaho Falls
law office. “This is a very conservative district and
Congressman Simpson has a moderate voting record.”

Simpson is out of step with the rest of the state’s four-person delegation, Smith said.

‘Odd Man Out’

“He’s the odd man out on many of these important votes,”
he said, citing Simpson’s votes on increasing the federal debt
ceiling and last week’s $1.1 trillion funding bill, which passed
the Republican-led House on a bipartisan vote of 359-67.

Smith cites Tea Party-aligned lawmakers in Washington as
his political role models, including Representative Justin Amash
of Michigan and Senators Mike Lee of Utah, Rand Paul of Kentucky
and Ted Cruz of Texas, the architect of the strategy that led to
the partial shutdown of the government in 2014. Smith calls Cruz
a “Republican hero.”

Disappointment with Simpson among Tea Party activists was
on display when about 40 Smith supporters gathered last week in
a meeting room at the public library in Idaho Falls.

“This has become a very, very important race not just for
Idaho, but for the nation,” he said. “You deserve a
congressman who isn’t afraid to stand up for conservative
principles in Washington.”

Simpson’s counter to Smith is that he’s represented their
values in a more productive manner.

“Being conservative doesn’t mean you just go vote no on
everything,” he said in a telephone interview. “It means you
try to find conservative solutions.”

Voting Record

Simpson, seeking a ninth term, has cast several votes in
recent years that have angered Tea Party activists.

He was the only member of the current Idaho congressional
delegation in 2008 to back the $700 billion Troubled Asset
Relief Program bailout of financial markets. Simpson also was
one of just 16 House Republicans in March 2012 to support a
budget plan that would raise revenue as well as cut spending.

“The Tea Party has the same goals as the Chamber of
Commerce as do many other organizations,” Simpson said. “It’s
the tactics of how you achieve those goals.”

Still, he is taking his challenger seriously. Simpson, who
had fundraising assistance from a personal visit to the district
from Boehner in August, raised $460,977 during the fourth
quarter of 2013, more than twice as much as he collected during
the same period two years ago, a Federal Election Commission
filing shows. He had $787,424 in the bank in January.

Smith raised $111,066 during the same quarter and had more
than $375,000 cash on hand, according to a Jan. 9 campaign news
release.

Ann Burt, one of those who attended Smith’s meeting at the
library, isn’t persuaded by Simpson’s assertion that the party
rift is simply about tactics and remains troubled by his record.

“He totally sells us down the river with almost every
vote,” said Burt, 52, a personal assistant working from home.

Burt said she isn’t concerned about the infighting within
the Republican Party, locally or nationally.

“I would rather fail, fighting within my party, than go
lock step with things I don’t agree with,” she said.